Christmas At Our House

Missy very generously shared this little "get-to-know you" list, so I figured I'd be a copycat.  I've officially used all my creative energy on dreaming up Christmas presents for the approximately 4,790 people in my family.  I'm spent.  Feel free to copy & paste in your own blog if you're spent, too.  So, here goes:

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?  I have honestly never had a single urge to try eggnog.  It seems disgusting.  What I do like is Starbuck's hot chocolate with an extra shot of vanilla.  Nummers.  


2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?  We had to tell Sissy about Santa this year.  She was devastated.  I'm not sure how this will affect the whole Santa thing yet.  Back when there was a Santa, he wrapped them.


3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?  It has long been a known fact among the females in my family that colored lights are tacky.  I understand that now, but when I was little I always wanted colored lights.


4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope.  My husband doesn't need any more encouragement to be, um, frisky.


5. When do you put your decorations up? Day after Thanksgiving.  I always think I'll put it off until the first weekend in December, then can't resist & do it anyway.


6. What is your favorite holiday dish?  Cookies, cookies, cookies.


7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  I need to get a copy to read Sissy this year.


8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? My mom let it slip when I told her I lost the necklace I got for Christmas when I was 8.  She was pretty mad, & I figured out why.


9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We do Christmas Eve with my in-laws, so we open a plethora of gifts on Christmas Eve.


10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Gold and red balls, then a mixture of sentimental stuff.  I'm not really sentimental about anything except Christmas ornaments.  I love unwrapping them every year & remembering who gave them to me/made them etc.


11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? If I ever saw any, guess I'd love it, but here outside Houston, we're more likely to get a hurricane a-blowin' at Christmas than snow.  When I was younger & lived in Tennessee, it snowed about 18" & stuck for 2 weeks.  I started out loving it & hated that crap after about 3 days.


12. Can you ice skate?  Only if I'm trying to win $100,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos.  I suck.


13. Do you remember your favorite gift?  I got a Barbie Dream House that I nearly wet my pants over one year. 


14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Umm...Jesus!?  Kind of the point of it all, dontcha think?


15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? see numero 6


16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Though I gripe about it, I really do like going to my mother-in-law's for Christmas Eve.  It's less tense than being around my family (though the food is terrible, terrible, ter-ri-ble).


17. What tops your tree? A tin angel.


18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Both, equally.  I'm kind of a present slut.


19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? "What Child is This" is the bestest.  I also love Harry Connick, Jr. Christmas music.


20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?  Yuck by themselves, but yum in the following: ice cream, hot chocolate, milkshakes, and cookies.


21 Favorite Christmas Show? Charlie Brown.  I know, I'm boring.  I also like to watch "When Harry Met Sally' at Christmas, though it's not really a Christmas movie.  Just one of them things, I guess.


22. Saddest Christmas Song? "Little Drummer Boy" is so melancholy-sounding. 


What about youse guys?

I Will Pay For This, I'm Sure

Umm, a roll call of the hideously-bad-for-me-yet-delicious food I consumed today:

• fried turkey
• cornbread dressing
• Gulliver's Corn
• sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows--that is sacrilege)
• Green Beans Almondine
• macaroni casserole
• cranberry sauce (homemade & Ocean Spray --I love food that retains the shape of its can)
• roasted garlic mashed potatoes
• Parker House rolls
• deviled eggs

Aaaand, for the desserts: (I've only had 1 dessert so far--this will not be the case by tomorrow)

• chocolate pie
• caramel bread pudding with vanilla ice cream
• apple pie with crumb topping
• pecan pie
• carrot cake
• pumpkin pie

I will now go and wallow on my bed, if I can fit through my bedroom door.

Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop: Diary Entry from my 13 Year-old Self

 

Awesome writing prompt from Mama Kat today...post a diary entry from when you were 13.  Since there's no possible way to locate my diary from 1987, I'll have to think back.  I haven't matured much past the age of 13 so it probably won't be very hard.

Dear Diary,

I really hate my new haircut.  It was my 13th birthday present (I'm a TEENAGER now!!!!).  It's really short, like a super-short bob with short bangs.  It makes my face look round and fat.  Since my hair's straight, I've been tucking it behind my ears, so it's a little better, but not much.  My aunt took me to this fancy place in the mall, which was cool because I've never been to one of those places, but now I'm totally sure that Davis will never even look at me again.  I really wanted tickets to see Madonna, because she has a concert exactly on my birthday, but I had to get the haircut instead.  I'm going to try and fix my hair before Monday, because I will die if I have to see Davis looking like this.

(later)

Oh my gosh, I am going to kill myself!!!!!  I begged my aunt to help me fix my hair and she said OK and took me to another hair place (not the cool one at the mall) and she said she thought it would help if I got a perm.  What do I know, so I said OK.  MY HAIR LOOKS LIKE A POODLE.  My bangs were so short the lady could barely get the little perm roller thingie in them and now my bangs are LIKE A FRIZZY LITTLE PUFFBALL exactly like those fancy poodles you see.  I went home and cried so hard I threw up.  Now I'm going to the mall to try and find a hat.  There is no fixing this hair.  I want to die.  I'm going to see Davis tomorrow!!!!

There is no explanation for why the adults in my life allowed this abomination to be done unto me.  Just so you know, during the summer I turned 13 I gained about 15 lbs., started my period, and got this awful hairstyle.  I wore a hat for the rest of the summer, a la Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, but I started a new school in the fall and they wouldn't let me wear the hat.  Eventually, my hair grew out and it was actually kind of cute, but when that perm first set, it was baaaad.

And, Davis?  Was an 18 year-old boy who never even knew my name, except in my vivid 13 year-old stalker/fantasy life.  I doubt I ever even said hello to him.  He sure was purty, though, I remember that.  Man alive, thirteen sucked. 

Mommy Secrets

I volunteered to be Sissy's room mother this year (we've stopped homeschooling...more on that later).  Obviously, like many moms I want to be involved and helpful, but it goes a little deeper.  My mother, for lots of different reasons, wasn't able to participate much in our lives at school, and it always bothered me.  So, of course, I'm dedicated to doing everything "right" now that I'm the mom.

Only, I can't.  Really, I'm ill-equipped for room-momming.  It's hard!  Calling other parents and asking them to do stuff...I can do it, but I hate it.  Making elaborate snacks/treats for parties?  No fun.  Chaperoning field trips?  Happy to, but the teacher in me is always evaluating whether or not it's really a "worthwhile" educational experience.  And there are all these other moms who seem to be doing it all enthusiastically.

Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I'm a bad room mom. 

What is your guilty mommy secret?  Please comment so I can move on from my June Cleaver guilt!

A Little About Me

I've seen these questions a couple of places, most notably here, so I thought in the spirit of re-dedicating myself to blogging, I'd participate a little. Here goes.

 1) What's your favorite thing to snack on while blogging?  Umm, food of any kind.  I love almost everything, but if you make me pick, it would be Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream.

 2) What is one thing you wouldn't want to live without?  Hands down, no contest...air conditioning.  I live in Texas, need I say more?

 3) Beach, mountains, or farm? Where would you live if you had a choice?  I romanticize the idea of living on a farm, but truthfully I know I could *never* take all the work that comes with farm life.  Mountains are beautiful, but I pick the beach, hands down.  Preferably Hawaii.

 4) What's your least favorite chore/household duty?  Dishes.  They depress me because they are neverending.  I often get the idea to bake or cook and get discouraged from actually doing it because it would mean more dirty dishes.

 5) Who do people say you remind them of?  I was once told Supernanny Jo.  Which seems to indicate my children should be way better behaved.

 6) Prefer parties and socializing or staying home with the fam?  Both, equally.  I love being at home, but am kind of boisterous, so sometimes I need to get out and socialize.  I'm a people person, definitely.

 7) What's your all-time favorite movie?  Because I'm a history teacher, it's Schindler's List.  Pretty depressing stuff, but really excellent.

 8) Do you sleep in your make-up or remove it like a good little girl every night?  I go for days without wearing any (which is not a pretty sight), but I often forget to take it off before bed.

 9) Do you have a hidden talent or a deep desire to learn something that you've never had a
     chance to learn? What is it?  I want to write a novel.  Really badly.

10) What's one strange thing you're really good at?  Debating/Arguing.  Not really a strange talent, but quite annoying to my husband, nevertheless.

11) What first attracted you to your spouse?  He's skinny.  I love skinny rock-star boys.

12) What is something you love to smell?  I love the smell of shoe polish.  I missed a great opportunity to be a huffer in my youth.

13) Tell me something about you that you know irritates people.  I can be too loud and way too opinionated.

14) When you have extra money, what's the first think you think to do with it?  Go on a date with my husband.

15) Are you a silent laugher or a loud laugher? What makes you laugh the hardest?  As stated before, I'm a loudmouth.  Tina Fey always makes me laugh.

16) Where is your favorite place to shop?  Super Tar-jay.

17) What's one thing you'd do more often if you had time?  Scrapbook.  I'm so behind, it's not even funny.

18) Are you a big spender or frugal?  Unfortunately, I'm a spender.  Big-time, but I'm working on it.

19) Who is your favorite character of all time (from a movie or book, can't be real).  Elizabeth Bennett or Elinor Dashwood.  I'm a Jane Austen kinda girl.

20) Would you want to be famous?  I think I would love it at first, then rapidly lose interest as I lost privacy.

Pretty standard-issue stuff, I guess.